The Homecoming of Three
by Adamus Sutekh
Summary: Putting on a layer of false calm to cloak my dread, wearing a defiant mask in the face of my inevitable demise, I speak. "The Legacies live. They will find each other, and when they're ready, they're going to destroy you." (Not AU.)
1. Prologue

Home.

Where is that now? Lorien used to be my home, but I watched its destruction at the hands of the Mogadorians through the windows of our ship. The ship that I am now about to leave. We are landing on Earth in a few short minutes.

Earth. Can that be my home? Maybe it will be, but I have confidence that I'll return to Lorien one day. I can't get the picture of the barren, cold planet out of my mind. It can't stay that way, right?

"Three."

My Cêpan is calling me, but I don't want to go. I don't want to leave the others behind.

"Number Three."

I won't mind getting away from One's evil Cêpan Hilde, who is scary whenever we are bad. I guess she is otherwise okay, but she still scares me. And One herself is almost as terrifying, especially when she has temper tantrums at Nine, who _always_ freaks out back.

But I _will_ mind leaving the others, especially Two, behind. Two and I grew up together.

"Three, dear, come to me. We're about to dock."

I take a shaky breath. When I turn, my Cêpan stands in front of me with open arms. I walk past him, not wanting him to see the tears that are beginning to form in my eyes.

_Don't cry. Don't cry, Three, you're a big boy now. Four years old. Almost a grown-up, right? Gotta act like a big kid._

"Three, I'm sorry about this. But we're about to leave, and I want to explain to you, my plan."

"Bad grammar! I think logically speaking, it should be 'I want to explain my plan _to you!_' Did you graduate from elementary school, or not?" Someone teases in a high voice.

Two.

It has to be her. Nobody else talks like that. I turn around, and there she is. My best friend is five, only a year bigger than I am, but she is a genius. When I met her, I couldn't walk nor talk. She was a toddler and into chapter books already. Right now, she has learned at least two human languages already, and speaks them so fluently I think my head will explode if I hear another human word. I think she's the coolest person I've ever met, even though she likes to tease everyone she knows.

I can't believe I won't be seeing her for a long time. My Cêpan won't tell me how long.

"Two!" I run up to her and tackle her in a rather violent hug. It almost knocks her over. "I'm sorry, er, and I'll miss you. But I-"

She cuts me off. "I'll miss you, too, you great idiot!"

"But I have a question-."

"Don't worry. I'll remember you when we meet again, I have a photographic memory of both your face _and_ ankle numerical whatever symbol and am obviously the best intellectual prodigy in-"

"Oh, Two…" Conrad, her Cêpan, sighs.

"Sorry. So what were you going to say? I mean _iterate,_ because _say_ is a _normal_ word and therefore soooo boring?"

"Er, that's kinda creepy, because I was going to ask how we were going to know each other! Anyway, I still have half the question left. How will _I_ know _you?_"

"Easy. I will call you a great idiot!"

"That's mean!"

"But it's true! I always call you that, so you'll remember."

"Why do you call me that, anyway?"

"You think you're so cool, but you're stupid. In other words, your head is big, but your brain is small! _Minuscule!_"

"I love you as a sister, Two, but that's going too far!" I laugh. "Who's the _real_ big-headed one here? I think we all know…"

"Oh, trust me." Two snorts. "I know! But I'm only like this with people I trust, because you probably don't know, but I get so paranoid of other people unless I know them well…"

"What if you didn't know me?" I giggle. "Like I was secretly a two-hundred-year-old insect who turned into a person so I could take over the universe?"

Two mutters something about 'unsophisticated incomprehensible babbling.' I'm not sure what that is, but I think it's bad, and it's about me. I laugh. _Someone_ has a ridiculously large vocabulary… unlike me!

"You two," One yells, "it's time to leave! And get a room!" As soon as I've turned around, she breaks into a sprint towards the door, which is just starting to open.

"What does that mean?" I say?

Two sighs and sticks her tongue out at One's disappearing back, then turns to me. "You don't want to know." She runs to Conrad, who picks her up as easily as he would lift a baby. Conrad swings his ward over his shoulders and takes the giggling girl outside.

I feel my Cêpan's strong arms grab me from behind. "Up you go! Remember, in Kenya, your name is Hannu. And I'm Hali, your father. Your mother got into a car accident, and your relatives live in Quebec, Canada."

"Why Quebec?" I hear Hilde as she walks past us, not even bothering to try to keep up with One, who is running out the ship's open door.

"I like the sound." He says.

"One and I are off to California. After I told about an Earth sport called 'surfing,' she said she would join the Mogadorians if I didn't let her do it. I know she wouldn't really, but she is so adamant when she wants to do something." Hilde sighs.

"Two says she's going to the United Kingdom, but won't tell me where." I say. "She says that as long as she can buy lots of good books, she will go anywhere!"

"You and that girl are such close friends." Sandor, with Nine on his back, winks at me as he jogs past me. "_Very_ close friends…"

"Look at your face – grow up, Sandor!" Adel, leading Seven by the hand, has a red face.

"Why don't you look at your face?" Sandor shoots back, jokingly.

Adel doesn't look like she can take a joke. Dragging poor Seven along, she sprints after Sandor.

"Let's go, Three." My Cêpan says, carrying me along.

I struggle, but he won't let go. Eventually I just give up and decide to make the best of my situation. We're just going on an adventure. I try to make myself feel excited. Isn't it cool? I'm on an alien planet, about to learn new cultures and languages, to assimilate myself with these interesting-sounding 'humans!'

But there is so much I'm leaving behind, too.

We go outside, and I twist my neck, looking up at the stars in the night. They look different than they did on Lorien. Are we that far away?

"Three!" Two squeals when she sees me. Conrad is already taking her away, with a human behind them. "I hate you as a brother, but I love you, too!"

"That makes no sense!" I yell after her. "I thought you were smart, Two!"

"Well, as long as you remember that I'm smarter than you!"

"Got it! I love you as a sister, but I don't hate you like an anything, and we'll meet again soon!"

Two makes a weird salute at me, then points at something in the distance, prompting Conrad to break into a full-out sprint. The human gets tired in seconds, but tries to keep up. I watch their figures disappear.

Two is so much smaller than me, but I've always looked up to her. I think she might even be smarter than One, and she's a big nine-year-old! Of course, I'd never, ever tell One that… she might hurt me or worse, hate me forever and ever!

"Here are your tickets." A feminine voice says. "Kenya, right? Ah, you might want to lose those long socks."

I look at my socks, which are so long that they reach almost to my knees. "Do I have to? I love my socks." I turn and give the lady my best puppy-Chimaera eyes.

"His scar needs to be hidden." My Cepan explains. "We don't want one of them to see."

"Ah, yes. Please excuse my memory." The woman says. Her almond-shaped eyes narrow even further as she smiles.

"But of course. You're only human." My Cepan laughs. "I am just joking, dear. As a Loric super-genius, I can forget easily, too! And I'm kidding about me being a genius, too… heh."

"Who are you?" I say. "Not to be rude, but I thought we were supposed to be hiding from humans who knew too much about us!"

"I'm a Greeter," the lady explains, "one of the few gathered by Malcolm Goode to welcome you to Earth."

"Mal-colm." I say. "Wow, you humans have cool names. I have problems saying that one, though!"

The woman laughs. "What's your human name going to be?"

"Han-nu." I say, sounding stupid as I do it.

"Sounds like a portmanteau of 'handsome' and 'cow.'" She says.

"Cow?" I ask. "My name isn't Han-cow!"

"No, but 'nu' sounds like the Chinese word for cow." She explains. "Unlike you Loric, us humans have many different languages. I speak both English and Chinese. Where you are going, I think you should better learn Swahili."

"Oh, no!" I suddenly think of something. "What if I say a bad word in another language, and it was by accident, and somebody hears me and gets mad?"

"Just tell them you don't speak the language and it was an accident. Mistakes happen."

"Yeah, but sometimes bad things happen that aren't mistakes." I say. "Like what the mean people did to our planet. The Mogadorians are all bullies."

"Sometimes people do bad things on purpose, too." She says. "I hope that, when you're older, you make sure to do the _right_ thing. Come, I'll take you to the airport."

She begins talking big numbers and human nonsense with my Cêpan, who seems to understand. I curl up in his arms and watch the sky. My eyes naturally seek out a specific faint speck of starlight, beyond which lies Lorien, where I will return to one day.

Upon seeing where the planet should be, I remember flashes of the night we left; fire, explosions, destruction. Two was crying, but not as hard as I was, and she calmed down when One screamed at her to shut up. I remember One screaming at me, too, and she was soon joined by Six, Five, and Nine. But I couldn't stop sobbing. Eventually Two, Four, Seven, and Eight got them to stop yelling at me, but, inconsolable, I just kept wailing and crying. Lorien shouldn't have been destroyed, and I should be back there.

I close my eyes and clutch my Cêpan's shirt, fighting back tears. I've left behind so much. The only friend I've ever known, Number Two, who I knew since before I was old enough to speak. My family, whose memory is starting to fade, and that scares me. My home, the only one I've truly had.

Lorien.


	2. 1- Idiocy Twice Confirmed

"Calm down, you idiot!"

I jolt awake, screaming. Images of the dream I just had flicker through my head, replaying fragments I have not yet forgotten. What remnants I have are profoundly disturbing; I keep seeing the war in which Lorien's defense was quickly vanquished, the Loric dying in horrible ways as they attempted to fight back, and the Mogadorians stripping Lorien of its resources.

My eyes dart around the strange human ship I'm in. I'm strapped into a soft but uncomfortable seat, with my Cêpan – Hali – beside me, and a girl on my other side. She is leaning out into the aisle with a disgusted face, trying to get as far away from me as possible. That girl must have been the one who told me to calm down.

"Sorry." Hali explains. "My son must have been having nightmares. He didn't like the space movie we watched last night. And he doesn't like airplanes, either."

I open my mouth to argue, but I remember not to give away who I am to humans. She is probably a human, and not one to be trusted; the Greeter is nowhere to be seen.

I don't want to look like an idiot with my mouth hanging open, so I speak. "Yeah, that movie was the scariest I ever watched!"

"Pfft, I'm not scared of no movies!" The girl, who is a little taller than I am, waves her hand dismissively and sits up. She seems more amused than ticked off now. "But it _does_ make me _very_ angry when little kids scream in my ear."

"I thought I only screamed _after_ you called me an idiot. And I'm not a little kid."

"No, you screamed the whole time." She laughs. "What are you, three?"

I look pleadingly at Hali. She knows my number! What if she's a Mogadorian and she wants to hurt me? What if she'll tell her other Mogadorian allies…

The girl taps me on my shoulder. "Hel-lo!" She snorts. "I asked you your age."

_Oh._

Hali chuckles behind me.

"Sorry, I just tuned out because I remembered a bad scene from the scary alien movie." I say to her. "I'm four years old, so no, I'm not a little kid."

"Awfully small for a four-year-old! I'm four, too. Turning five in seven months, ten days, and eleventy seconds."

I squint.

"You don't know what eleventy means? Wow, what a baby. Just kidding. I made up the word! It means eleven tens, and it's twenty bigger than ninety, I think. Aren't I smart?"

_Which other girl thinks – or knows – that they are a genius and calls me an idiot?_

"You remind me of someone." I say, thinking of a certain little redhead.

"So do you. When I looked at you, I immediately made a connection between your ugly face and my dead pet fish that I flushed down the toilet."

I frown, then laugh because her comment is so ridiculous.

"I'm just joking." The girl says, nudging me. "Sorry, you're just so fun to tease."

"What's so fun about _me?_" I say. "I thought I was too dumb to be funny."

"I don't think you're actually dumb. Just a little babyish in here." She taps me on the top of my head. "What's your name? If you remember it, of course, with your tiny brain."

It feels like every girl I meet is determined to call me dumb. I decide to ignore the brain comment.

"I'm Anu. I mean, Hannu."

"Cool. It sounds fun to say." The girl says. "My name is _the_ coolest name in the history of names. I'm Ayah, which means 'bright.' It fits me perfectly."

"You love to brag, don't you?" I say. "Would you still be bragging if I beat you in a breath-holding contest?" I wink at her.

Ayah makes a gross face. "Nyah! You're only a little boy, what chance do you have against me? Here, I'll give you a head start. Count to three, and you start holding your breath." She inhales deeply and stares at me.

"One…" I look at her, trying to count as slow as possible.

Ayah makes an _'are you serious?' _face and shakes her head at me.

"Two…" I count even slower, grinning evilly at Ayah.

She gestures to my nose, then bangs her fist on the armrest of my seat.

I wink at her. "Two and a half…"

Ayah's skin, which is a little darker than mine, is starting to turn pale. She makes weird faces at me and flails her arms around.

"Two and three quarters…"

She looks like she's about to kill me. I think she wants to, at least; she keeps on slicing her finger across her neck violently. I better stop teasing her, or else. I don't want to end up like Nine when he goes too far teasing One. The poor boy still probably has nightmares about her!

"Three." I sigh, then take a deep breath. Almost immediately, Ayah lets out the breath she's been holding in, and begins gasping like she is going to die.

"Are you okay?" I say, forgetting that I'm in a contest. Then, when she sticks her tongue out at me, I stick out my tongue back. "Who's the dying fish now?"

"Shut it, brainless. I said you looked like my dead fish, and a dead fish is worse than a dying one." She chuckles. "But that was good. You got me there, I have to admit."

"Oh, the champion of everything is giving in!" I tease her.

"Rematch!" She yells immediately. "And no head start this time!"

I nod, but suddenly I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I'm falling. In an instant, it goes away. "What was that?" I demand.

Ayah ignores me. "Ready… set…"

"No!" I yell, because the feeling is back, and even worse – my ears feel like they're going to explode. "Ayah, something's wrong!"

I shove past Hali, who has dozed off, and look out the window. We're approaching the ground.

"We're falling!" I scream, banging my fists on the window. "No! Hali, wake up, please do something!"

Ayah just laughs.

"What's so funny?" I spin around. "What if we _die?_"

"It's not funny!" Ayah howls. "It's _hilarious!_ Did you _see_ your face? We're just landing. I can't believe we're almost home!"

I pause. "Oh. And for the information, no, I did not see my face. I don't have a mirror. Speaking of mirrors, if you looked in one, it would break into a million pieces because-"

"Nice try, shrimp. At least I'm more attractive than _you._ Keep trying if you want to get me mad." Ayah winks. "But remember, it's not _good_ when I get mad. You don't want to see-"

"I think I've already seen you when you're angry, Ayah."

"That doesn't _count._ You don't want to see me when I'm _really-_"

There's a jolt and the plane ride is no longer smooth. It feels like we're sliding on gravel. I look out the window, and we're rolling across some kind of black stony ground with lines painted onto it.

"Oh, we're here!" Ayah tries to jump up, but her seatbelt pulls her back. She falls back down with a grunt. I grin.

"What are you looking at?" Ayah nudges me with her shoulder. "I'm just excited, that's all!"

Hali stirs. "Three." He murmurs. I turn to look at him.

"What?" Ayah gives him a look.

"Sorry." Hali suddenly sits up straight, his eyes wide. "Just counting sheep in my dream."

"Oh."

"So, Hannu, it seems like you've made a new friend." Hali says. He turns to Ayah with a wide smile. "Where are you off to?"

"Um, hel-lo, I'm not supposed to tell that to strangers. But I'm coming back from a trip to Quebec, Canada. It was horrible. Everything was nice, but the cold wasn't, and it ruined _everything!_" She gives a dramatic sob.

_Quebec? _I shoot Hali a look. He ignores me.

"Yes, we have relatives in Quebec. It is so cold there compared to Kenya. I wonder how they survive going outside in the winter, even with snow gear on."

"Ask them." Ayah rolls her eyes. "I'm just sure that _I _did not survive Quebec. Like, I am a dead person right now." She turns to me and makes a noise which I think was supposed to be creepy. "Woooooo!"

"If you were really dead," I tease, "you would have won the breath-holding contest! Because you wouldn't have had to breathe!"

"Shh," Ayah says, "your dad doesn't know about that."

The plane seems to have stopped. A human in the aisle says some Earth words, and people begin to get up. Ayah struggles with her seatbelt and makes a frustrated noise when it comes flying off. Hali undoes his seatbelt and helps me with mine.

"Hannu, we will have to reach our destination on foot." Hali explains. "The village we're off to is deep in the jungle – off the grid. Isn't that cool?"

I tilt my head to one side. "What grid? Like on the math graph paper Tw- I mean, my _friend from home_ is in love with?"

"Not exactly. I'll explain later." Hali smiles at me. "There is a beautiful ravine near the village's outskirts, too. We need to do some sightseeing when we get there, Hannu. You'll love the adventure."

"Yes." I say. "I love adventures!"

_As long as they aren't dangerous, _I want to add, but I don't. I don't want to spoil Hali's great mood.

"Ravine?" Ayah spins around. "Jungle? Sounds just like _my _village!" She claps her hands over her mouth.

"Don't worry," I say, "we won't tell anyone! That's where we're going, too."

"Pinkie promise me you won't tell. Mom and dad will be mad if they know I've been telling my location to strangers." Ayah holds out her hand, her little finger extended out.

"What?"

"Pinkie promise!" Ayah squeezes her small finger with the same finger on the opposite hand. "Like that!"

I copy her with my hands.

"No! Your pinkie _and_ mine! Not yours with your own!"

"Oh."

I do it right this time.

"I'm glad you won't tell." Ayah smiles. "If you did, I might have to kill you!" She is still smiling.

I take a big step back, crashing into Hali. "Whoa. Wait, what?" _Is she one of them?_

"Just kidding. " Ayah sighs. "You gotta take a joke, Anu."

Now I feel like an idiot. A four-year-old human girl, working for the Mogadorians or disguised as one. _Wow, Three, you really do have no brain! Or a pea for one._

"Sorry, still scared out of my wits after the creepy space film." I take a step away from Hali. "Too many evil aliens. And it's _Hannu._"

I resist the urge to say '_I thought you were smart._' That is a quote reserved for insulting Two. I miss her so much already. I wonder if any of the other eight miss the rest. I'm sure Seven and Eight, who were great friends, must miss each other bitterly. But Nine and One – not so much. I laugh when I think of One screaming at Nine, earning me an awkward glare from Ayah.

The people in the aisle are beginning to clear out. Ayah steps out into the aisle and begins shaking an old man. "Get up, Gramps! We're home! Help me reach the bags."

_"We're home."_

_You might be home, Ayah, but I'm not. And I won't be home for a long time._

I sit back down in my seat and fidget with my thumbs, trying to hide the sudden wave of sadness that has just overcome me. Hali moves past me and reaches up into a compartment near the roof, taking out the Loric Chest and a bag containing clothing.

"Are you all right, Hannu?" He says, noticing my frown.

"No." I whisper. "I wanna go home."

Hali sighs. "Me too, Hannu. Me too. I'm sorry."

"I just wish the Moga- I mean, the _bad people _felt sorry. Then they would leave us alone and we could go back home, maybe."

"We will go home." Hali says. "Someday. But today's not the day, and _today_ is the start of an adventure. Hannu, I hope you're ready, because our Greeter got you a present." He holds up a pair of extremely long socks, longer than the ones I already own. They are white with pink frills at the top.

I force away the thoughts of home and smile. "Tell her I don't have clown feet, and I'm a _boy!_"

"We won't be seeing her again because she has to go into hiding, so I can't tell her, but she didn't arrange to embarrass you on purpose. She had a gift of socks for you, but she had to return them because they were too short. These were the longest socks she could find."

"It's a great gift!" I say. "Only I don't want to be – what do humans call those frill-wearing dancers again…"

"You don't want to be a ballerina, Hannu?" Hali roars with laughter at the word. "Okay, understood. We'll do something about the frills."

"How did you get the Chest here?" I ask. "You carried me, not it!"

"Our Greeter may have been small, but she was _very_ strong. She carried it, as well as all the clothes."

"Wow." I breathe. "Maybe she is actually one of us!"

"No, just a gym teacher." I explain. "Now, Hannu, would you like to carry the Chest or this little bundle of clothes? I think I know what you will pick…"

"The Chest!" I say, making Hali look surprised. "I wanna be strong, too. And the Chest is so cool. You take those stinky clothes."

"They were washed, and this is too heavy for-"

"Come on!" Ayah calls over her shoulder. She's leaving with her grandfather. "Grandpa says you can follow us; we know the way and you will probably get lost."

I make a big show of shoving past Hali, grabbing the Chest, and laboriously marching after Ayah. "Umph! Ayah, look at me!" I say. "Am I a shrimp now, Ay-"

I drop the Chest and tumble over it, landing on my rear end in the aisle. "Ow! _Hali!_"

Hali comes racing over. "Oh, Hannu." He says, helping me up. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." I sniffle. I grab the clothes away from Hali. "Next time, I promise I'll listen to you. Sorry, da."

I realize I accidentally called my Cêpan 'da,' but I decide that it is actually more logical, since he's supposed to be my father in the story he's made up for us. So I don't correct myself.

"Don't worry, Hannu." Hali pats me on the head and scoops up the Chest.

We walk to the front of the plane together. We were seated at the very back. The flight attendant sees us and waves, saying something in Swahili.

"She asked you if you enjoyed your flight, Hannu." Hali tells me.

"Yes!" I say in English. The flight attendant seems to understand, and beams at me.

We leave. Hali and I don't see Ayah and her grandfather at first, but then we notice that they are unloading more bags from what seems to be an almost-empty rack of luggage. They are being helped by a tall, dark teenage boy and a much smaller, but equally dark-skinned girl. A pale man watches them.

"Why are you doing this?" I say. "Are you taking other people's stuff?" I gasp, horrified. "I thought you already got your bags off the plane!"

"Oh, those were our carry-on items." Ayah waves her hand. "We brought more with us, but there were too many to carry on."

"Stealing is against the law, young man." The pale man leans down to confront me. "Don't get any ideas."

"I wasn't-"

The man turns away and scrutinizes the rack again, but not without a sideways glare at me. When he's not looking, Ayah makes a face at him. I decide that she's not so bad. She is ruder than Two and almost as rude as One, but I think she's nice. Maybe we can be good friends.

"Who's this?" The teenage boy points at me. He says something in Swahili. I'm sick of not understanding this language.

"That's Hannu." Ayah says. "My friend. And yes, he's coming to the village with us."

The other little girl waves at me, but averts her gaze immediately and hides behind the boy's legs.

"Oh, hey." The boy says. "My name is Beno, and this is my little sister, Dhamiria. Do you speak Swahili?"

"No." I say. "But I'll learn."

"Oh, you better." Ayah says. "Or you'll feel like an alien for the rest of your life with us!"

I bite back a comment. I can't tell her that I'll _always _feel like an alien, because I _am _one – but nobody's allowed to know.

It feels so bad, keeping secrets. I never had to keep secrets from Two. Why am I thinking of Two so much? The answer comes to me almost as quickly as the question does.

Because being away from her is like being ripped away from my family, all over again. Besides Hali, she was the closest thing to family I had, since leaving Lorien. I want to confide in her again, and share all my secrets with her. She knows stuff about me nobody else does – like, for example, that every other night, we would sneak to the cookie jar with Five to feast. I didn't even tell Hali that.

_Two, do you miss me as much as I miss you?_

"Hel-lo?"

Ayah waves a hand in front of my face. I flail and stumble backwards. "Woah!"

"Hannu, you totally zoned out there, bro!" Beno says. "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah," I say, "just thinking about the scary alien movie da made me watch."

"Oh, I didn't make you." Hali crosses his arms. "Didn't you insist on seeing it?"

"What movie?" Beno asks.

Hali's mouth drops open, and so does mine. What do we do?

"Definitely _the War of the Worlds._" Ayah shivers. "No other movie is so scary!"

"Yeah, that." Hali says. "Horrible violence. Gives me nightmares, too." He looks relieved.

"I thought you weren't scared of any movies." I say to her. "You even said."

"Yeah, _I _wasn't scared, of course!" Ayah says, standing up taller. "I just meant that it would be scary for _normal _people. I'm too good for that."

"But _normal _people eat cookies." Beno winks. "Are you too good for those, too?"

"No way!" Ayah yells.

_Cookies – _the mention of that food reminds me. Hilde noticed something off, and she blamed it all on Reynolds, because she saw him cleaning up the kitchen at night. I wonder if Eight still accuses his Cêpan of being a notorious cookie thief.

"It's time to go." Hali says. "Hannu, hang in there. I know you're tired, but-"

"I'm not tired." I say. "Just thinking."

We begin walking down a hall. Dhami-something yawns. Unfortunately, my mouth opens wide and my jaws part in a huge yawn, too.

"You _are _tired." Hali insists.

"She-" I point at Dhami-whatever. "She _gave _it to me!"

Dhami-hard-to-pronounce-name whimpers and hides behind her brother, clutching his hand.

"Sorry." I tell her. "I guess it's not your fault you yawned. But it's not my fault I yawned, either."

She nods.

Hali laughs. "I'm just pulling your leg, Hannu. Come on."

"Don't pull my leg." I say. "I might fall."

"Don't be so literal." Ayah shoves past me and blows a raspberry.

"Huh?"

"Never mind." She snorts. "Anyway, you'll _hate _my grandmother… she is the strictest person ever to new students! You're old enough to go to school, right?"

_Oh, no! Another Hilde-clone?_

"Unless you like people who talk like they're a principal about to give you a suspension." Ayah says. "Then you'll _love _her."

I don't talk. I'm scared out of my wits. What if she's even worse than Hilde? At least Hilde is _nice _when she's not freaking out at us. What if Ayah's grandmother is _never _nice nor calm? It's a terrifying thought.

Maybe I should stop thinking. But I can't turn my brain off. I just start thinking about the cookie jar raiding incidents again.

We walk through a human building with people walking everywhere. Some of them are pale or slightly tan, but most of them have darker skin. Beno and Ayah's grandfather lead us. When we're outside, I take a deep breath of the fresh, humid air.

It's nothing like Lorien's air, which is so clean and immaculate. But the air here is somehow just as refreshing, and full of different smells, all seemingly alive and intermingled. I think I _like _Earth!

"So, where do we go?" I say. We're standing on a platform; ahead is a black path. Humans ride in some kinds of land ships. Two might call them 'terrestrial transport systems.' I frown, because I notice bad-smelling smoke spewing out of their ends. "Do we have to go in one of those?" Then I remember. "Oh, we have to walk. How far will it be?"

"Actually, I arranged to hitch a ride from a friend. She'll drop us off when the road stops, and it's just a few hours' walk from there." Beno grins, showing off a mouthful of perfect, white teeth.

"Okay!" I say, but then my eyes grow wide. "Wait… a few _hours?_"

"Yep!" Beno flexes his muscles. Ayah does the same, and so does even Dhami-whatever-the-rest-of-her-name-is. I try to copy them.

Ayah screams with laughter. "You look so funny! Even Dhamiria has bigger muscles than you."

I smile. "Well, when I get some exercise, I'll have muscles so big that the mountains over there look like pins." I point to some towering mountains in the distance.

"Pfft, right now your entire arm looks like a pin." Ayah collapses on Dhami's shoulder. She is laughing so hard, I think her jaw will come straight off her head. But it doesn't, and Dhami begins giggling a little, too.

"Guys, give Han a break." Beno winks at me.

"Hanna!" Ayah squeals. "That should be your name!"

I laugh with them, even though I'm just a little offended. I guess it is pretty funny that tiny Dhami looks stronger than I do. It is even more funny that soon I'll be so strong, I could burrow a hole through one of those mountains with my bare hands. It's great to be a Loric Garde!

"Sorry, bud, hate to interrupt your party." Beno taps me on the shoulder. "But our ride is here."

A relatively large human vehicle pulls up. I frown at the stuff coming out of the pipe at the back of it. _We never had things this gross on Lorien!_

"Oh, so we _do _have to go in there." I sigh. "It won't kill us, right?"

"Duh." Ayah almost pushes me over, but I catch myself just in time. "You think we'd be allowed to go in if it was dangerous? Gramps, would you let us?"

Ayah's grandpa says the first word I've heard him say. "No."

"Told you." Ayah whispers. "Idiot."

"He's kind of cute." Dhami says to Ayah in a low voice, but I can hear her. I begin blushing like crazy, and run to hide behind Hali.

"Yeah, baby cute, not _boy _cute." Ayah shoots back.

"That's what I meant." Dhami's voice is so quiet that I can hardly hear her, and she sounds just like a subject agreeing with her ruler.

I keep hiding behind Hali, but for a different reason now. I feel so embarrassed.

"Stop being mean, you two." Beno says, as a window of the vehicle rolls down. "Hey, Jian. Exactly on time, as always! Hey, new paint job on your van?"

"No. New van." A familiar female voice says.

I squint at the woman behind the wheel. When I see who our driver is going to be, I can't stop my mouth from dropping open in surprise.

It's the Greeter.


	3. 2- A New Home

How can this be?

I look up at Hali. "I thought you said she had to go into hiding!" I whisper.

"I'm just as confused as you are." He replies.

"Whatcha talking about?" Ayah asks me. "You know Beno's friend?"

The Greeter – Jian, Beno called her – overhears Ayah. She purses her lips together slightly and Hali sees it.

"She looks like someone we used to know." Hali says, before I can answer. "An old friend."

"Oh." Ayah looks almost disappointed. "You _really _don't know anyone, don't you?"

"No." Hali says. "Everyone we know lives in Quebec. But we are glad that we are meeting new people here." He gives everyone a polite smile and grins especially widely at Ayah.

Jian presses a button near the door handle on her side. There is a clicking sound. Beno pulls two doors open – one parallel to Jian, the other beside the first door, but closer to the rear of what Beno called the 'van.' So many complicated Earth mechanisms. Two would love this. I hope she is getting to use a lot of cool technology, wherever she is.

_Two, you are probably smart enough to duplicate these machines with the right materials. Meanwhile, I don't even understand the first thing about how they work. It was so much simpler back on Lorien. Our technology was easier to use than this. How do these humans cope? Are they all geniuses… like you?_

_Oh, Two, we need your brain here. I hope we can see each other again soon._

_I miss you._

"Hannu's zoning out again." Ayah sneers.

I shake my head. Maybe I should stop having one-way imaginary conversations with Two. At least until she develops some Legacy that allows us to _actually _communicate with each other over long-distance. Or, hopefully, we'll get together before that.

Wait, where is everyone?

"Get in, you big idiot!" Ayah sighs.

Her voice is coming from inside the van.

Only one door – the one closest to the back – is open now. I walk over and climb in. As soon as I come in, I notice that Dhamiria is sitting beside Beno. Ayah's grandfather is sitting beside Jian at the front. At the very back, there is a row of three seats. Hali is sitting near a window, and Ayah is seated in the middle. She gives me a wave of her hand, followed by a somehow-evil smile.

I have to sit beside Ayah. Oh, well. At least being ridiculed can be funny sometimes. I squeeze past the cramped seats and plonk down in the spot next to her.

"Put on your seatbelt." Ayah instructs me. "If you don't, bad stuff will happen to you."

"You love to threaten me, don't you?" I groan. "And what's a seat whatever?"

"A seatbelt, are you stupid enough to forget such a little word?" Ayah grabs a strap next to my shoulder and shoves it into my hand, then points to a weird slot near my hip. "You put this-" she points to a metal object sticking out of the strange strap, "into here." She points to the slot again. "Come on, everyone's seen a seatbelt before."

I have to come up with something. I look at Ayah's seatbelt. It's different, because she is sitting in a seat that is attached to the original seat. In front of me, Dhami has the same thing. I have an idea.

"Usually, I ride in one of those!" I say, pointing to Ayah's seat. "So I didn't think this was a proper seatbelt." I point to my own.

"Yeah, you look like you need a booster seat." Ayah says. "You can have mine."

"No, that's okay." I say. "I'm fine in this one."

Ayah ignores my words completely. "I'm bigger than you, anyway. Let's switch."

She undoes her seatbelt, then presses a button on the slot that mine is stuck in. My seatbelt comes off and almost slaps me in the face. It returns to the position it had before Ayah showed it to me in the first place. I stare at it, gaping.

Ayah gets into the extremely-narrow aisle in front of us. "What's the matter?" She laughs.

"I, um, never saw that happen before." I say. "Because, as I told you, I don't use those kinds of sea- seat-"

"Seatbelts. Wow, you really gotta improve your vocabulary." She enunciates the words like she is speaking to a baby, who is just learning to talk. It sounds weird, because she also says 'gotta' like it's the most _official _formal word in the English language.

She sounds rude, but I just laugh along with her. I get into the empty 'booster seat' she was in, and frown at the seatbelt. This one has several.

"Here, Hannu." Hali says. "I'll do this for you." He buckles the different seatbelts together. They make clicking noises as they snap into place.

"What are you doing?" Jian calls.

"I just gave Hannu my booster seat." Ayah brags, folding her arms arrogantly. "I'm a big girl now, so I don't need one!"

"No, no." Jian responds. "This won't do!" She opens her door and runs to the back of the van.

I hear it opening, and then Jian comes back; this time, she opens a door closer to the back. She makes a gesture for Ayah to stand up. She does, and moves backwards as Jian puts a third booster seat next to mine. Ayah sits down in it and fixes her own seatbelt. Jian leaves, shaking her head and muttering something that sounds like "fa fēng."

There is a loud beeping noise from behind that makes me jump, but just like what happened to Ayah on the plane, my seatbelt drags me back down.

"Hurry up!" A man's voice roars from outside.

A car drives around us, with one window rolled half down. Two men glare out at us. Jian calls out something which I can't hear, but I think she is apologizing. She gets into the driver's seat and moves some interesting-looking levers, then places her hands on a wheel in front of her. Her leg moves – I think she is stepping on something beneath her feet. This is so confusing. In seconds, we are moving forward.

I look at Ayah. I think she was staring at me, but she turns away towards the window as soon as I look at her. I crane my neck up, looking to see what interesting thing she's seeing in the window. There is the human building with 'airport' written on it, but nothing else that catches my attention. I decide to challenge Ayah to another breath-holding contest. I tap her on the shoulder, but she ignores me. I frown and turn to Hali. Before I can speak, he has already started talking.

"Do you want me to take the clothes?"

I look at my arms. I am still holding our clothes bag with one hand. "Okay." I hand it to him. "Where's the _other bag?_"

"Oh, the big suitcase?" Hali grins at me. He must know I'm talking about the Chest. "I put it in the back when you were zoning out. Thinking again?"

"Yeah." I say. I don't want to talk about Two, however, with all these people around me. I yawn, and this time it's not because I heard Dhamiria. "I'm tired." I say. "Can I go to sleep soon?"

"Why don't you take a nap right now?"

I nod, then close my eyes. When I doze off this time, I don't see Lorien or the Mogadorians destroying it. This time, I see Two.

_"Three!" She exclaims gleefully, but her expression turns to one of horror. "Three!" This time, when she speaks, her voice is a hoarse, terrified cry._

_"Two?" I gasp, taking a step towards her. "Two, I-"_

_She turns and bolts away from me, into darkness._

_I sprint after her, but I am gasping for air in the first minute, and after three short minutes, I cannot go on._

_"Two, stop!" I call out, but she doesn't stop. She keeps going and I can't see her anymore._

_There is a scream somewhere in the distance, a terrified shriek of pure horror. It cuts off abruptly and there is silence._

_I know that voice._

_It's Two._

_"Two-" My voice breaks._

_Determined, I rise to my feet. I try to run to her, but something grabs me from behind._

_So Two wasn't running away from me. She was running from something that was behind me. It was chasing me, too._

_I don't want to turn around. I don't want to see what happens next. I close my eyes and wait for this horrible dream to be over._

_"Hannu!"_

"Hannu!"

"Hannu, wake up!"

I open my eyes and find that Ayah is shaking me. She looks concerned for a second, but then she makes a gross face at me.

"You were flailing and whimpering like a whiny baby." She says. "Did the movie scare you _that _much?"

I open my mouth, but then I think about Two. A sob escapes my throat. _Please please please don't let that dream mean anything._

"Tell me the truth." Ayah puts her hands on her hips. "It has to be something else. It's not just the movie, isn't it?"

"No." I answer, truthfully. "I miss my friend from home."

"Oh." Ayah says. "You must really miss him."

"It's a girl. And yeah, I do miss her."

"Don't worry, _we _can be your new best friends!" Ayah grins. "Right, Dhamiria?"

The shy girl turns around and nods to me. I smile and wipe my face. Maybe, just maybe, I will be as happy here as I was on the ship. With Two.

"Hey, me, too." Beno laughs, turning around. "Han, you're a cool little kid. Cool enough to play basketball. I'll teach you when we get home."

"Basketball?" I tilt my head, like a confused bird. "What's that?"

"It's a game." Beno explains. "The name says it all. There are two teams, and one ball. Each team is trying to put the ball in the other team's net."

"Net? I thought it was a basket, because you said _basket_ball."

"It's like a basket." He says. "Just without the bottom."

"I_ love _basketball." Dhami says. "You will too, Hannu. Hey, that rhymes…"

"Well, Dhami, you're bad at basketball. No offense, though." Ayah reclines in her seat. "But I'm much better than you are. Once, in a _real _game, I almost scored." She pinches her fingers, but not completely. "_This _close to hitting the backboard!"

Beno laughs. I have no idea why he's laughing, what a backboard is, or why she wanted to hit the backboard. But I just laugh along with him.

"We're almost there." Jian tells us. Her voice makes it sound like she's dictating something incredible, like she's announcing a world record-breaking feat, or something like that.

Beno and Ayah cheer. I'm late, but I join in, too. Even Dhami gives a little squeak and puts her hands up in the air.

"What's the village like?" I ask Beno.

"Oh, it's great." He says. "We try to live a traditional way of life, and we are mostly self-sustainable."

"I'll miss electricity." Ayah frowns.

"Wait, you don't have electricity?" I tilt my head.

"No, I told you." Beno says, sounding as calm as ever. "We live off the land, except when the occasional aid-workers come and bring us stuff."

"No!" I insist. "You never told me!"

"Well, he just did." Ayah rolls her eyes at me. "And your voice is going so high, you sound like you are a mouse."

"I am not a mouse!" I say, then notice my voice is even higher. I begin laughing, and I can't stop. Suddenly, Ayah wiggles her eyebrows and grins evilly at me.

In the deepest voice I've ever heard coming out of the mouth of a girl, she says, "you may not be a mouse, but there is no doubt that I. _Am. An. Elephant!_"

With one eye squinted and one eyebrow raised high, Dhami whips around and stares at me. I point to Ayah. Dhamiria throws her hands into the air and looks at her.

"How?" Is all she can say.

"Practice." Ayah giggles, her voice back to normal.

"We're here!" Beno exclaims, suddenly.

I expect the human vehicle – the tran or han or van or whatever it's called – to stop. But Jian just keeps on driving.

"Jian, the road stops here." Beno says.

"You call that the end of the road?" Jian sighs. "This is just the end of the easy part of it. Kids these days. As a friend of your family, I know that your parents will not be pleased if I drop you off here."

I look out the big window at the front of the vehicle. The road ahead is a beaten-up dirt trail, with jungle on both sides and puddles of disgusting-looking mud everywhere. I silently hope that Jian keeps driving. I don't want to walk outside right now. I can see clouds of tiny bugs swirling around in the air.

"What are those?" I point at the insects, squinting.

"Mosquitoes." Ayah explains. "Never seen one? Didn't you go outside in the summertime?"

"He was scared that the birds were aliens." Hali makes up an excuse for me.

Ayah snorts. "I knew you had no brain. Anyway, mosquitoes seem small, but they can be way more dangerous than the biggest elephant. They sting you with their mouth parts and suck your blood."

I cringe. "That's gross! And scary. What if they suck all your blood and you shrivel up like a little raisin? I don't wanna die!"

"They are small, so they can't do that." Dhami juts in.

"But!" Ayah yells. "But, they carry disgusting diseases. Like Malaysia. It can kill you."

"It's Malayria," says Dhamiria.

"Malaria." Beno corrects both of them.

"So what do I do when I see one?" I ask. "What if it chases me?"

"Oh, just swat it to death." Ayah says. "And Dhamiria is too scared to kill them, so if you see near her, you have to kill it, too. She is a crybaby and a whiner."

"Am not!" Whines Dhamiria. "Meanie!"

"See what I mean?"

"Yes, Ayah, you are mean."

"No! Not that kind of mean, I mean, argh! Like, what I was trying to say. You get it?"

"Uh, what?" I cross my eyes. "As you said so many times, I am an idiot and don't get what you mean!"

"You obviously do." She says. "I can tell, because you have an idiot face on. Therefore, you are trying to pretend to be stupid. Even though you are already stupid. You just want me to think you are stupider, so I can get angrier! Idiot…"

"I'm just messing with you." I say. "Anyway, back on topic… what about at night? How do we kill the bugs then?"

"We can't," Ayah says, "so we have mosquito nets over our cots."

I have no idea what that is, but I think it solves the problem. Not wanting to sound like an idiot by asking too many questions, I just stop talking and look out the window. It is getting darker. It could be because we're going deeper into the jungle, or because it's getting late and soon it will be night. I try to think like Two. Maybe that will let me know; after all, the Cêpans all said that Two was the smartest child on the ship. She knows so much.

Maybe she knows of what is to become of us, too. That would be cool; Two knowing the exact time we would meet up, down to the nanosecond! I think I'm being ridiculous.

It would be so cool to be smart. I could predict what people would say and do before it happened. I could figure out hard problems in the blink of an eye. Maybe one day, I'll be as intelligent as Two already is now. Or is that even possible?

But then again, nobody is perfect, not even Two. I've heard her yelling in her sleep; it's always the same words, always encased in a sentence spoken so fast I can't make out the other parts she says.

_Lies._

_Mistake._

_Imperfect._

Something was wrong with her. Something haunted her mind; and what hurt me the most was that I could do nothing to help her with it.

I had been getting sleepy since Ayah wasn't talking to me anymore, but now I am wide awake. "Ayah," I say, "how far is it to the village from here?"

"Well," she says, "it's uphill. With your short little legs, it will take eleventy thousand million hours. But we'll be home before midnight, definitely, if somebody carries you and somebody else carries Dhamiria!"

Dhami seems okay with this; she doesn't say anything. But I disagree. "I'm almost a man," I say. "I have to do my own walking. I could probably carry Dhami."

"No, pfft!" Ayah screams with laughter as I say this. "More likely, she carries you! Don't think you are so amazing because you are a guy. I could beat you up, no matter how big your head is-"

"Not because I'm a guy, because I'm older than her an-"

"She's five years old, you-!"

"_Stop._" Ayah's grandfather orders in a deep, booming voice. My mouth drops open. For such a quiet man, he can be very loud when he needs to!

"Let's change the subject." Beno says. "We were talking about age, right? I'm fourteen."

"Yeah, so elderly!" Ayah shouts out. "I'm four. So is Hannu here, even though he looks like a baby."

"Do not." I say.

"Forty years young." Hali says. "See my _obviously _wrinkle-free face?" He smiles, showing dozens of wrinkles on his head and little ones around his eyes.

Dhamiria props her feet up on the seat in front of her, earning her a nudge from Beno; she immediately takes her feet away. "I'm five, going on a thousand."

"Okay, the road ends _for real _here." Jian says, interrupting our age-disclosing party – but not for long. "And I'm much older than Beno, but younger than Hannu's father." I think she's disregarding Hali's name on purpose. "You guess my age from there."

Everybody begins screaming random numbers.

"Okay! I changed my mind." Jian yells over the noise. "Let's forget about my age, and get your stuff out." She presses a button and something clicks loudly.

Ayah undoes her seatbelt and squeezes past Beno and Dhamiria's row of seats. As Beno slides his door open, the three villagers file out. Hali helps me get my seatbelt off before removing his, and I follow the other out of the vehicle. Jian and Ayah's grandfather leave through their respective doors.

"Here, I will get our other bag." Hali says, handing the clothes bag to me. He winks and passes me, on his way to the back.

Jian and I are the only ones not at the back. She does not have to carry anything, and I already have my luggage that I am going to carry. She turns to me and then reaches into her purse. Her small hand emerges with a weird machine that is just shorter than my forearm.

"What's that?" I ask.

"A gift," she says, "for you. It is a kind of flashlight that can generate power by turning this." She points to a black crank sticking out of the side of the weird flashlight. "It has batteries, but once they run out, it will still be functional as long as you use the crank."

She presses a button on the opposite side of the crank, and light comes out of the end of the flashlight. As she turns the rotating shaft, the light becomes a little more intense. I stare at it.

"Thanks-" I begin.

"No problem, little ox." She says.

"Ox?" I ask. "I thought you said I was a cow."

"Well, on that night, you pronounced your own name wrong. Said it like Han-niu, so I thought the last part sounded like 'cow.' Now I know how it really sounds. And even though you are small right now, I know that you will be as strong as an ox one day. We both know exactly why. Don't we, Hannu?"

"Yeah!" I shout. She hands me the flashlight and I wave it around before turning it off by pressing the button a second time. Gleefully, I turn towards the others.

"I am watching out for you, Hannu." Jian says before I hear her get into her vehicle. The door closes behind her.

"This is not fair." Ayah grunts, lugging a huge duffel bag. "Wanna trade, you shrimp?"

"I thought you were strong." I say in an innocent voice, then grin at her in the same evil way she uses with me.

Ayah's eye twitches. "If I had a free hand right now, I'd slap you so hard, you fly into the clouds!"

"Come on, you two." Beno says. "You two can fight it out when we get back… in a game of basketball!"

"That's not fighting!" Ayah screams, throwing down the bag.

"You are not supposed to be fighting." Beno says. "And basketball is fun, admit it."

Ayah nods, but then sticks out her tongue at all of us.

"Are you two ready, or do you want to camp out here all night?" Hali says. "I heard about the mosquitoes, and I'm not ready to fight them."

"I am." Ayah says. "I'll fight _anyone._"

"All right, take your anger out on me." Beno laughs. He leans his suitcase against a tree.

Ayah throws herself at the teenager, driving punches at him. He chuckles whenever her fists manage to connect with him. Occasionally he feigns pain dramatically, making Ayah laugh and attack him more. After a while, Beno overdoes it and stumbles face-first into a mud puddle.

"I think I killed him." Ayah says to me, almost proudly.

I take a step back, but then Beno stands up. "Nice effort, but I didn't feel a thing." He says, grinning. "Except when I made myself fall – I kinda scraped my knee on a rock. But I did that on purpose. Just, kids, don't do this at home!"

"Oh, don't worry." Ayah winks at me. "We will!"

I run and hide behind the nearest person I see, who just happens to be Dhamiria. She giggles and assumes a menacing stance, glaring down her friends.

"Oh, no!" Beno gasps, staggering backwards. "I think I'm going to pass out, I'm so scared! Please, ma'am, don't hurt me!"

"You don't scare me!" Ayah squeals. "Let's fight!"

"Okay, no more fighting for now." Hali walks past us. "Please, I want us to at least get to the village in one piece!"

"Okay." Ayah sighs. "But we're_ definitely _getting up early tomorrow morning to play Lions and Antelopes! And next, we can play Capture the Person."

I don't even want to ask what the games are. I know what a lion and what an antelope is, and they eat each other. Capture the Person just sounds plain murderous, almost like the Mogadorians hunting down the Loric Garde. Ayah sure likes to play rough games, doesn't she?

"I want to play Capture the_ Flag._" Dhami whimpers. "We never play that anymore. Even after you left, nobody lik-"

"Because it's lame."

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Are you three coming?" Beno calls. He, Hali, and Ayah's grandfather are standing at the edge of the jungle. "You're too close to the van, too. Jian needs to leave, but she is too polite to tell you to move."

"Coming!" Ayah screams, grabbing the bag. We run to the others.

Beno waves. I turn around and see that he is waving at Jian, who is turning her van around. I jump up and down, waving both of my hands in the air.

"You look like a maniac," Ayah says, but she waves, too.

The van comes to a complete halt, still half-turned. Jian rolls down her window. She sticks her head out and waves, making eye contact with everyone – but looking at Hali and me the longest. Then she rolls the window back up and continues maneuvering the van until it is pointing in the opposite direction it once faced in. She drives away, and I watch the vehicle become smaller and smaller until it is lost around a bend, and I can only see the beaten path and the jungle.

Another person I might never see again.

I look up at the sky, where the first two stars have just appeared. Just to be sure, I count again. There are still two stars, but I know there will be more when the sky gets darker.

_Two, are you watching the stars right now? What are you thinking of? Anything that you're thinking about, it must be important, because it means it can compete against all that other information in your head which you can also think about…_

"Hannu, sheesh." Ayah shoves me. "You just get so… absent sometimes!"

I shake my head, then nod, because I was shaking my head to clear it – not in denial! "Yeah, sorry. Thinking about my friend again."

"You know, I really miss my other friends." Ayah says. "You'll love them. They are so fun, and we all play games together." She smiles. "I can't wait to show you the village!"

"I thought you didn't like it."

"The lack of electricity bothers me, yes! But apart from that, I love it! Everything is so fun and- eeee!" She squeals, clapping her hands.

"I think you broke her." Beno walks past me, laughing.

"I'll break your bones when we get back to the village, Ben!" Ayah threatens him.

"That's more like it." Beno chuckles. "Seems like Ayah's normal."

"Oh, no, I'm not." Ayah sprints after Beno. "I am not normal. I am a very gifted specimen with superhuman powers." She slow-motion punches him in the arm. As slowly as possible, going along with Ayah's theme, Beno pretends to clutch his forearm in severe pain.

"My brother is the best." Dhamiria says to me. "Isn't he great?"

"Yeah." I say. _I guess Two was wrong about her studies on human teenagers. Not all of them are bad, I guess. I feel like I'm guessing a lot of things. Two would never guess this much._

"You okay?" Dhamiria waves a hand in front of my face.

"Yeah," I tell her, but duck away because I'm walking faster than she is and I don't want to crash into her hand with my face.

"Are you mad or something?" She says. "Because all you're saying is yeah."

"No."

"There we go!"

"You know what?" Ayah turns around. "That rhymes. Oh, and you two are going too slow."

"We're at the same pace as you, actually." I tell her. "Just at the back."

"Well, you look slow." She continues. "And here is the uphill part."

"Uhh!" Beno grunts from ahead of us.

"You okay?" Dhamiria cries out.

"Yeah, just hit myself in the face with a leaf." He sighs, then begins to laugh. "I can be so awkward. And it is kinda hard, clearing a path with this stick alone." He holds up a long stick.

"Here, give me that. I should take a turn." Before the youth can answer, Hali simply grabs the stick out of his hand and starts assaulting the foliage in front of us. We continue on at a faster pace.

"When I'm as big as Beno," Ayah brags, "no leaf will hit me in the face. Because I will be taller than a tree, and so strong, I can flick one over by breathing!"

"When I'm that big," Dhamiria adds her own, "I will be able to pick the city of Nairobi up with my little finger. And balance it. And put it down – safely, of course!"

"I could do the same," I say, "but with my other hand, I would carry all the mountains of the world!"

"When the three of you are teenagers," Beno says, "I have a feeling you will get into lots of trouble." He looks at me and Ayah especially.

"Hey!" I say. "Why are you looking at me? Looking at Ayah, I can understand, but me? I mean, just no…"

"Yes, Hannu, you are mean." Ayah says.

"No, that's not what I meant! I meant that was what I was trying to say with- oh…" I smile awkwardly, remembering that I used the same trick on Ayah herself. Like a bashful child, which I completely am, I run and cower on the other side of Beno.

"You two are so funny." Beno says. "You will either be great friends… or worst enemies!"

"Probably worst enemies," Ayah says.

I hope she's joking.

We walk on for what feels like hours. When it gets dark, I pull out my flashlight and give it to Ayah to hold. She flashes it in front of Hali so he can see where he's going, and the rest of us follow suit. The humidity of the jungle is ridiculous, and even though it's nighttime, I feel too warm for comfort. I can feel sweat pouring down my face, the back of my neck, and my forehead. My feet feel like they are going to boil themselves, and my hands are covered in sweat. This is disgusting.

I've never been so gross before, but I don't say anything. Nobody else is complaining. I don't get it. How come the others are not at all bothered by this? I turn to Ayah, who is smiling as she and Dhamiria exchange a loud conversation about bugs, spiders, little reptiles, and other creepy crawly things I don't want to even know about. She seems content. Maybe she is used to this kind of humid, hot weather.

Hali, who is ahead, has his entire shirt drenched. Beno is carrying both the suitcase on his back and the Chest in his arms, and he is covered in sweat. I guess not all of them are used to this… or maybe it's just because he is tired. I suppose I am being silly. Of course he is used to this weather.

"Do you mind carrying this?" I say, holding up my bag of clothes to Dhamiria. She is holding another, smaller bag of clothing.

"No, not at all!" She says. "I love to help."

She doesn't seem as shy as when I first met her. Maybe she's only like this after a while of getting to know her. I smile and thank her, then give her the bag. I run up to Beno.

"Here," I say. "Let me take that suitcase."

"You sure?" He asks.

"If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't even have asked!" I beam at him. "I'm an honest, good boy. Right, da?"

"Indeed." Hali chuckles.

"Thank you, Han." Beno says to me, as he takes the suitcase off his back. "Give it back if you get tired, okay?"

"All right!" I grab the handle and try to pull it, but it doesn't work. Frowning, I try to copy what Beno did – putting it on my back. It is extremely heavy, but I manage to keep it on there. I walk hunched over like I have a back problem. Behind me, Ayah is laughing her head off.

"I see huts." Hali says, peering through a gap in the bushes he made. "We're here!"

"Home!" Beno says. "I recognize that rock." He points to a strange rocky formation that looks like – believe it or not – a pale hippo with two sharp teeth.

"Let's go!" Somebody yells. I can't tell it is, but not even a second later, everybody is trampling everybody to get through the bushes.

We burst through the jungle and end up in a clearing, with a small path that goes between small wooden huts.

This is their home, and we're here at last.

And for the first time, I believe this can be_ my _home, too. My home, until it comes time for me to return to Lorien.


End file.
